Symbolist art
Parent categories: art - Symbolist movement
Key text: Dreamers of Decadence: Symbolist Painters of the 1890s (1969) - Philippe Jullian
Related: art - allegory - Decadent Movement - fantastic art - fin de siécle - mythology - visual arts
Dreamers of Decadence: Symbolist Painters of the 1890s (1969) - Philippe Jullian [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Theorists: Jean Moréas
People (chronologically): Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 - 1898) - Gustave Moreau (1826 - 1898) - Arnold Böcklin (1827 - 1901) - Félicien Rops (1833 - 1898) - Odilon Redon (1840 - 1916) - Max Klinger (1857 - 1920) - Fernand Khnopff (1858 - 1921) Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918) - Edvard Munch (1863 - 1944) - Elihu Vedder (1864 - 1923) - Carlos Schwabe (1877 - 1927)
Symbolism in art is distinct from Symbolism in literature although the two overlapped on a number of points. There were several, rather dissimilar, groups of Symbolist painters and visual artists, among whom Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Henri Fantin-Latour, Edvard Munch, Félicien Rops, and Jan Toorop were numbered. Symbolism in painting had an even larger geographical reach than Symbolism in poetry, reaching several Russian artists, as well as figures such as Elihu Vedder in the United States. Auguste Rodin is sometimes considered a Symbolist in sculpture. [Mar 2006]
Abandoned City (1908) - Fernand Khnopff
Definition
Symbolism in art is distinct from Symbolism in literature although the two overlapped on a number of points. There were several, rather dissimilar, groups of Symbolist painters and visual artists, among whom Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Henri Fantin-Latour, Edvard Munch, Félicien Rops, and Jan Toorop were numbered. Symbolism in painting had an even larger geographical reach than Symbolism in poetry, reaching several Russian artists, as well as figures such as Elihu Vedder in the United States. Auguste Rodin is sometimes considered a Symbolist in sculpture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism_%28arts%29#Symbolism_in_the_visual_arts [Mar 2006]Symbolist painters were part of a 19th century movement in which art became infused with mysticism, and by the closely allied Symbolist movement in literature. It was a continuation of some mystical tendencies in the Romantic tradition, which included such artists as Caspar David Friedrich, Fernand Khnopff and John Henry Fuseli and it was even more closely aligned with the self-consciously dark and private movement of Decadence.
The Symbolist painters mined mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul, seeking evocative paintings that brought to mind a static world of silence. The symbols used in Symbolism are not the familiar emblems of mainstream iconography but intensely personal, private, obscure and ambiguous references. More a philosophy than an actual style of art, the Symbolist painters influenced the contemporary Art Nouveau movement and Les Nabis. In their exploration of dreamlike subjects they are also precursors of the Surrealists, some of whom might be best explained as Symbolism with the content of Freud.
The leading Symbolists included:
William Blake - (1757-1827) * George Frederic Watts - (1817-1904) * Arnold Böcklin - (1827-1901) * Pierre Puvis de Chavannes - (1824-1898) * Henri Fantin-Latour (1836 - 1904) * Fernand Khnopff - (1858-1921) * Gustav Klimt - (1862-1918) * Gustave Moreau - (1826-1898) * Edvard Munch - (1863-1944) * Odilon Redon - (1840-1916) * Félicien Rops - (1855-1898) * Jan Toorop - (1858-1928) * Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910)--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolist_painters [Mar 2006]
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